Alam

This intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel marks tyro feature writer-director Firas Khoury as a talent to watch.

The media and society, in general, love to label groups of people as “the others.” But throughout the world, we have more in common than we realize. It takes films like Alam to see that we’re all in this together.

Khoury’s light touch with a serious-minded script keeps the stakes low but intensely personal in what is essentially a story of a kid who risks his scholastic career, his good relations with his family and his “future” to impress a girl.

To a certain extent, Alam, which marks Khoury’s feature debut after a well-regarded career in shorts (in particular, Maradona’s Legs) follows some clear conventions, but there’s enough that is still raw and urgent at the film’s soul to make it stand out.